Tuesdays, June 17 to July 22, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Instructor: Maggie Golston
Poetry Center Alumni Meeting Room 205
$150 + $5 course material fee
Registration Deadline: June 10th

In the Poetry Lab, participants will examine and create various poetic forms, from traditional and metered to the newer experiments of Modern and contemporary poets. Special attention will be paid to participant’s own writings, and each week will include both on-site writing and an opportunity to workshop works generated by explorations of form. We will read many poets as inspiration--everyone from Shakespeare to Scalapino, Bishop to Bernstein. And while we will look at numerous examples of form, ultimately, the purpose of the Poetry Lab is the production and revision of new work. No previous knowledge of prosody or particular literary movements is necessary. The Lab is open to poets of all ages and abilities, and will be an active, productive environment for all.

Maggie Golston earned an MFA at the University of Arizona, and also studied as a PhD candidate at the University of Utah. Her work has appeared on a Kore Press broadside and in Ploughshares, Spork, and other journals. She received a Pushcart nomination in 2001. Maggie has taught poetry and literature at the University of Arizona and the University of Utah, and the Poetry Center. From 2002-2006, she owned and operated Biblio, a bookstore and performance space in downtown Tucson. She is also a songwriter and musician.

Tuesdays, July 8 to August 12, 6 p.m.-8 p.m.
Instructor: Matt Rotando
Miriam Endicott Emley Room 207 at the Poetry Center
$150 + $5 course material fee
Registration Deadline: July 1st

This is a craft class in surrealist writing. It will not be referred to as poetry because to limit the medium would only negate the expansive attitude the early Surrealists worked so hard to encourage. In his “Manifesto of Surrealism,” André Breton wrote in 1924 that the imagination knows no bounds, but that we are nearly always engaged in actions that limit it. This class works to reverse the process, to “unfurl the flag of the imagination” and to produce the strangest and maddest pieces of art and writing possible, in order “to express, either verbally, or in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought.” There will be readings and discussions of key texts, such as the major manifestoes of the early Surrealists, and early iconic poetic and dramatic formations by writers such as Breton, Tristan Tzara, Benjamin Péret, and others. We will also watch an early Surrealist film, Un Chien Andalou, and look at some early Surrealist sculpture and painting. However, all of our looking into Surrealism’s past will be done to illumine and inspire us to create our own imaginative works. Exercises will include, but not be limited to: collaborative poetry and drawing, written responses to visual art, reading and writing of short dramatic scenes, extensive automatic writing projects, postcards to nowhere, and building dream sculptures. This course is open to writers and artists of every kind and skill level.

Matthew Rotando attended Duke University as an undergraduate, completed his MFA at City University of New York, Brooklyn College, lived in Sri Lanka as a Fulbright Foundation Fellow and is currently working towards a PhD in English Literature at the University of Arizona. He is an avid rider of an old Italian bicycle and plans to ascend Mount Lemmon on it soon. His poems have been published in a variety of print and online journals and his new book, The Comeback's Exoskeleton, was published in April by Upset Press.








July 19, 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Instructor: Wendy Burk and Eric Magrane
Trailhead directions to be provided upon course registration
$65
Registration Deadline: July 11th

Like plein-air painting, writing in the field refreshes the spirit and creates indelible work. Join two poets, one a professional hiking guide, for a moderate 3- to 5-mile hike on Mount Lemmon. The morning will be filled with bird song, scenic views, and writing exercises—with some physical exercise thrown in. Participants will attend to the sensory experiences of the natural world and will render them in poetry that respects and embodies our unique sky island environment. You will receive directions to the trailhead and a simple supply list prior to the class. Please have suitable footwear (e.g., hiking boots) and be physically able to hike a moderate 3- to 5-mile hike over mountain terrain.

Poets Wendy Burk and Eric Magrane (a Senior Hiking Guide at Canyon Ranch Tucson) have been writing poetry together in wilderness environments for the past 9 years. They have been Artists-in-Residence with the National Park Service at Isle Royale National Park, Buffalo National River, and (in May 2008) Big Cypress National Preserve. Upon returning from Big Cypress, they will collect their National Park writings into a book of collaborative poetry. They have received grants from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the Tucson Pima Arts Council, and the City of Tucson.




Saturday, August 16, 1:30-4 p.m.
Instructor: Annie Guthrie
Poetry Center Alumni Meeting Room 205
Minimum suggested donation: $40
Registration Deadline: August 8th

Required Reading: Foe and The Master of Petersburg by J.M. Coetzee

J.M. Coetzee, two time winner of the Booker prize, winner of the Nobel prize for literature, is a master craftsman of literature. The author's characters are rendered perfectly, made human if not humane, and since his novels are populated with such unsavory subjects as grief and cruelty, Coetzee's works challenge traditional notions of reader responsibility. The author's interest in linguistics, generative prose, stylistics, structuralism, semiotics and deconstruction are revealed through the spirituality (or lack of it) of his characters. In both Foe and The Master of Petersburg, Coetzee's central characters have a relationship with a strong but invisible presence that dictates their behavior and their trajectories. This reading group will be a survey and discussion of the craft and structure of these works. Why is important to challenge ourselves as readers? What do we learn from ambiguity and complexity in literature? Students should come prepared to participate, question, present and reveal, to read closely and to interrogate the texts.

Annie Guthrie is a writer, jeweler and artist. She has received fellowships from Arizona Commission on the Arts and TPAC. She received her MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson Program for Writers. She has poems in the current issues of Tarpaulin Sky and In Posse Review.

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University of Arizona Poetry Center | 1508 East Helen Street (At Vine Avenue) |Tucson , AZ 85721-0150
Phone: 520-626-3765 | Fax: 520-621-5566 | email: poetry@email.arizona.edu